Where Are All the Workers?
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 29 July 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A supermarket chain is offering £1000 welcoming handshakes to new truck drivers - just one indication of the shortages in the haulage industry.
The Road Haulage Association says that there is now a shortfall of 100,000 lorry drivers across the UK and other sectors of the economy are also finding it difficult to find workers, including in hospitality, construction and IT.
The pandemic has shaken things up and Brexit has seen thousands of EU workers returning home - but is this a short-term problem or are there deeper structural changes happening?
Joining David Aaronovitch in the Briefing Room:
Dougie Rankine, editor of Truck and Driver magazine.
Katherine Price, news editor of The Caterer.
Tony Hill, Director of the Institute for Employment Studies.
Yael Selfin, Chief Economist, KMPG UK.
Torsten Bell, Chief Executive at the Resolution Foundation.
Jane Gratton, Head of People Policy at the British Chambers of Commerce.
Producers: John Murphy, Sally Abrahams and Kirsteen Knight. Sound Engineer: Graham Puddifoot Editor: Jasper Corbett
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Oronovich. |
| 0:03.0 | Think of it as a chamber of charts and maps |
| 0:05.6 | which you and I enter to get the lowdown on a big question |
| 0:09.1 | delivered by the top experts. |
| 0:12.0 | In this week's 28 minutes, we're running out of lorry drivers and chefs. |
| 0:16.4 | Could it be the pandemic, or is it Brexit? |
| 0:19.1 | Or is it a long-term problem in the labour market? |
| 0:26.3 | What have all these got in common? Builders, butchers, drivers, fruit pickers, carers and |
| 0:33.9 | IT workers? Answer, there aren't enough of them. |
| 0:38.1 | Something odd is happening in the labour market |
| 0:40.7 | and the question is, what exactly? |
| 0:43.9 | Is it a result of the pandemic |
| 0:45.4 | or a result of Brexit |
| 0:46.8 | or of deep-seated structural problems in the labour market? |
| 0:51.2 | And what should we do about it? |
| 0:53.1 | Step into the briefing room and together we'll find out. |
| 0:58.9 | As the economy opens up again, there have been plenty of stories of bars and restaurants not |
| 1:03.4 | having enough staff, of supermarkets struggling to get enough drivers to keep the shelves stocked, |
| 1:08.9 | even of petrol stations closing temporarily |
| 1:11.5 | because they couldn't get deliveries of fuel. So let's dive in and get a snapshot of two |
| 1:16.9 | sectors of the economy, haulage and hospitality. In the briefing room now, I'm joined by |
| 1:22.4 | Dougie Rankin, the editor of Truck and Driver magazine and a former full-time lorry driver, |
... |
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